I wonder if the "metabolically active" brown fat is using that energy to....errr, store fat? I mean forming tryglycerides out of free fatty acids in response to insulin. Perhaps the "brown fat" is the same as white fat just turned on at the moment? I do wonder if it's possible that brown fat varies in both location and amounts continuously.

Twinkies should never be diluted with less desirable sweets. Twinkies or nothing man!!!

(I'm sure some of our less-than- straight friends would agree)

Here's a question for anthropologists: Do black people have more or less, white to brown fat ratio's, than caucasians? Would, or would that not, be an indicator of "evolution" in action?

I was taught (half a century ago) that black people are black because their ancestors stayed in Africa under the equitorial sun. And the corollary, that white people were white because they had to wear clothing to survive the cold of Europe, and it weaker sun.

Why be skeptical? As long as your caloric intake is less than your caloric expenditure, you will lose weight. If you exercise and do not increase caloric intake, you will lose weight faster. Don't think the research is breaking new ground, no matter what color the racist fat is. The only amazing thing is that someone funds this research.

"This study confirms what the experts— and many promoters of the healthy-looking lifestyle — dearly want to believe."

Except that the article acknowledges that none of the studies done so far indicate that this protien addresses weight loss at all.

This isn't about "looking" healthy. It's about being healthy.

You can be as skeptical as you like until the research proves something one way or the other, but to say that those who are interested in this protien are somehow just desperately in it because they're concerned about their looks means you didn't read the article.

Research like this helps us better understand and address seriously debilitating, life-threatening diseases, such as diabetes. Studies such as the ones described in the article are the beginning of discovering new drugs, or helping people who have diseases like diabetes manage their health without drugs.

Why is that a bad thing...? What kind of person would look down on research like this, or diminish it with a snide and unfounded comment about vanity?